The Thin Line

R.I.P. Francis M

Francis Magalona succumbed to leukemia an hour ago 12pm, Manila Time.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Francis_Magalona

Google and Stuffed Animals

"And the minute you log into your gmail," my co-worker said, "Google will know you, your IP and every website you visited."

"I have a black panther stuffed toy that has a Gmail address. Would Google think that I'm logging in or would they think the stuffed animal is checking his mail?"

"Well first of all, you're not supposed to have an email address for your black panther."

"So every time the black panther logs on, Google will categorize the data under my identity?"

"I would suggest you delete that account."

"You mean, Google will think a real black panther was checking email?"

"Are you on drugs?"

Truth, Lies, Gossip and The Mob

I remember another Filipino blogger mentioned once that gossiping was the Number One Filipino past time. I commented on his sentimental post about a woman (sentimentalizing was the Number Two Filipino past time, he said).

I'm finding that there's a lot of value in living your life under the radar. If you're a public figure, however, this is not an option. But we average guys -- running our average blogs and living a pretty regular life consisting of work, friends and family -- it should really be the only way to live.

But then, there's The Mob.

The Mob can be anyone. It can be your regular group of friends.

Here's some pretty juvenile sketches:

Case A: I was walking home one night with a friend to the subway. Close to the station, my friend excitedly proclaimed that Guy A was officially dating Guy B. My reaction was along the lines of "Huh?" I knew more about the situation then she did, so I was pretty sure I'd know ahead of her. She insisted...

Case B: I was talking to someone on the phone when the person at the other end of the line gave me "news" that someone saw Guy C and Guy D attending Sunday Mass. And they were really sweet. Ergo, they were official.

For both cases, I ended the topic this way: If you cannot obtain first-hand information, you better not spread that "news" around further. We are so far out of high school...

Now, I rarely insist on being true (I mean, really, I'm a blogger...), but please humor me on this one.

Ordinarily, I would have shrugged and forgotten about it, but I had reason to be skeptical with those bits of "news". Gossip has a way of seeping into reality and possibly ruining a few ties and friendships here and there.

This is one reason why I jokingly adopted the role of devil's advocate in my community. I find that a lot of people just swallow everything they hear. I mean wow... These people could really use someone as skeptical, cynical and bitter as I sometimes am.

Some people never verify. They just get too excited. It's no different from reading and browsing tabloids. It's not that these people around you are naive suckers. They are just part of The Mob.

The Mob consists of the devious, the naive, and the asshats.

(What's an asshat? These are people who actually choose to be ignorant. It's a term derivative of the notion that there are people who have their head so far up their ass that they can wear their ass like a hat.)

The devious spread information -- or disinformation -- to either cover their mishaps or further their goals. It may be in their best interests for people to believe one thing today and the the opposite thing tomorrow, and so on. They're almost agnostic to truth. They may say a few truths here and there, but they usually leave out context and details that would paint a different picture.

The naive are those nicer people who unwittingly believe and possibly even pass information around.

Asshats, well, please refer to the parenthetical preceding this paragraph...

I've been regularly in touch with The Mob, ever since I joined Singles for Christ New York. In fact, I was part of The Mob, at times even as one of the blissfully ignorant and careless asshats.

I need to mention SFC NY, since I never saw this many problems in any circle I've ever belonged to. There were my friends in Computer Science. Never. And then my friends back in the dorm... Nope -- they're so caught up in themselves -- work, studies, families, relationships, hobbies, basketball leagues, and quite often, simply themselves and their vanities -- that they're too busy to talk about other people behind their backs. My first friends in New York? Same deal. They have other things to do. (I've heard them talk, but not as bad as...)

And don't fool yourself. I just sent you the link to this blog post. I have reason to believe that you're part of The Mob. Perhaps in the worst possible way. Mwahahahaha. (Well ok, not all of you. But if you were born in the Philippines, chances are...)

The Mob is someone calling to tell you all sorts of things that you really do not need to know.

The Mob is someone giving you seemingly innocuous information that will get you embroiled in some other people's mishaps.

The Mob are involved with blurring the lines between truth and lies, lies and gossip, truth and gossip, butter and I Can't Believe It's Not Butter.

Fight it people. We can fight it together. Stay in your Christian/Social Org if you must, but actually do work for it. Quietly. Let's all pick up hobbies. Be judicious with our free time. Open your mouth with the belief that your life depends on it. Move to a different town. Buy an apartment. Get a dog, or just pretend to have one. Blog. (Actually, write. And maybe read.) Run in Central Park. Learn tennis (if you already play, call me).

GK Heroes Run!

On November 18, 2007, at the Philadelphia Marathon, runners from Singles for Christ New York, New Jersey and Philadelphia ran the Gawad Kalinga Heroes Run 2007.

I ran with SFC New York team which includes Henry Tong, Jim Gabriel, Dave Lucido, Ramon Llenado, Israel Perez and Mia Ramos (the only rose among the thorns). With the exception of Israel and Ramon, we all trained with the RUN NYC Nike running club. We also managed to recruit a non-SFC member, Jerome Tanhueco, whom we met at Nike.

Four of us, including myself, were beginner runners. We registered for the shorter race (the Rothman 8k). Henry, Jim, and Ramon -- who ran the 8k at last year's GK Run -- along with Jerome, ran the half-marathon this year. Jerome clocked the fastest time at 1:30.

The Physical Challenge

For the more seasoned runners running the longer race, the challenge was to run faster times. They each had a lot of miles logged (on their Nike+ or Polar foot pods). For us beginners, our modest task was to simply finish the race.

I found myself trying to slowly raise my goal. First, I wanted to eliminate walk breaks. And then I wanted to race for time. Later, I even (foolishly) considered running the half-marathon, but my schedule curtailed any serious attempts at more consistent training.

We all thought we did well with our individual races. To me personally, the experience and excitement of the race was enough reward. I never thought running would be so much fun.

Raising Funds for GK Houses

The bigger challenge... Henry Tong, who put up our group's Active.com web page, set our fund raising goal to $10k.

It seemed like physical training was just half the battle. Scheduling to train was time-consuming enough, but add the time we needed to really follow-up with the people we beg -- uhm ask -- donations for.

We didn't quite reach the goal, but we were in for a surprise...

The Anonymous $3k Donation

One morning, I checked our team's page and saw a $3k donation. Some of us suspected fellow runner Henry Tong himself ponied up the cash -- though he denies the deed. We'd like to thank our Good Samaritan, whoever he is.

Race Day and the People in Red

The SFC NY team left the hotel early in freezing weather and we all feared the worse. Thankfully, apart from a minor drizzle, it was a pleasant race (those thermals get hot after the first two miles or so...).

During the run itself, we met familiar faces from SFC New Jersey and some unfamiliar faces -- presumably locals -- donning the red GK jersey. Both the 8k and half-marathon groups had their supporters in the sidelines of course.

My favorite moments during the race were seeing and greeting my smiling teammates and the other GK runners in red as well as hearing the cheers of my SFC NY friends somewhere before Mile 2 (and back).

And the soup at the food tent was great.

 

A Million Thanks

It was in the end, a fulfilling experience. We raised $7,045 -- almost enough money for five GK houses!

I'm really thankful for my fellow runners and GK advocates for the motivation. And we are all thankful for everyone who gave us support by donating or cheering us on.

Onwards to GK Heroes Run 2008!

Judel & Sharon's Wedding

[The Flickr gallery is here.]

I've missed a lot of weddings in the past four years. I promised Judel very early in 2007, however, that I would attend his in October. I was also supposed to be on-duty for pre-nup photography, but they decided to have that done by their official photographer.

Judel and I go back a long way. I went to school with him from grade school to college, he was part of the same high school and college barkada, and he was my roommate for a number of years in college and during my first working years in Manila.

I won't needle him with jokes about his legendary thriftiness (or his job-hopping nomadic career). It's not because the emcee, John-D Borra, already pointed that out. I actually take Judel seriously. He's one of the few people whose judgment I really trust. I still remember some of the little bits of advice given to me throughout the years.

Anyway, I'm just honored to attend the wedding and I'm very happy that Judel finally found his match and officially declared their mutual journey together in holy matrimony.

So Judel, old friend... Many happy, peaceful and prosperous years ahead for you and Sharon. God bless!

Judel and Sharon

At the hotel before heading off to church

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Best Man Ralph Lumo: "I prepared a speech on paper but I can't find it now..."

Walk for Breast Cancer

Michael Santiago dedicates this to his late wife, Anna Dalisay-Santiago.

Click here to see his page (and maybe you're interested in walking or donating...):

http://main.acsevents.org/site/TR//1700831282?pg=personal&fr_id=3420&px=1495729

The Official ASA Ballot

[Note: The email below was not written by me.]

The Birth of the Annual Sweeties Awards (cont.)

<!-- begin email -->

Okay, these are the categories for the Annual Sweeties Awards Night. Please, mail, phone in, or hand in your awards to the Comelec Chairman, Kim Chong.

1. The Most Kupal Sweetie Award: criteria follows
   1. The nominee should be named ______
   2. The nominee should have a legacy of taking alcohol showers
   3. The nominee should have, in the past, broken up with a girl, then got on with her again, only to break up with her for the last time
   4. The nominee should like flirting with his girl students.
2. Text King
3. Text Prince
4. Text Boy
5. The Michelin Award
6. The Short Time Award
7. The Pathetic Sweetie who Went to Boston and Still Didn't get the Girl Award
8. The I Don't Have the Heart Award
9. The I Want it That Way Award
10. The Pauly Shore Award: this award should go to the Sweetie who would be the best son-in-law. Award inspired by that insipid Pauly Shore movie that everyone claims not to have seen but actually saw.
11. The Best Basketball Player Award: criteria follows
    1. if the nominee has or had a professional basketball career, count him out of it.
    2. if the nominee played in the UAAP, count him out of it.
    3. if the nominee went to Boston to win back his girl, didn't stand a chance and managed to see Michael Jordan play there, count him out of it (of course, this is a hypothetical situation).
12. The Sweetie Most Likely to Have a TV Movie with Tori Spelling Award: this award should go to the Sweetie with the most creative, outlandish, and daring stalking style. Should we go with the stalking style of itsnotme_jutes@skyinet.net, where he waits outside of the girl's house in Paranaque for hours, only to scamper away when the girl actually gets home? Or should we honor notblackdick_at_all@yahoo.com, who just happens to bump into his ex at Malate ("O, fancy meeting you here...")?
13. The Best Sweetie in a Pseudorelationship Award: I'm not sure if you've all heard of the phenomenon of the pseudorelationship. It's like kayo na, pero hindi. Again, due to the sterling example of the King of Pseudorelationships himself, Kim Chong, we have to impose certain rules:
    1. Sweeties who used to ponytail their hair in college, but now look like Elliot from Just Shoot Me, Rex Chapman, or Andre Agassi cannot be nominated for this award. It's sort of like a Pseudorelationship Hall of Fame for them.
14. The King Cobra Award: this award should go to the Sweetie na pinakamadalas at pinakamagaling mangahas.
15. The Free-Willy-from-his-bed-with-its-own-ecosystem Award: this award should go to the Sweetie who displays the following characteristics
    1. is prone to adopt a position much like a beached whale all weekend long
    2. has not changed his bedsheets in four years
    3. the bacteria occupying his bedspace should not only have evolved to the point of actual communication, but should have developed their own political systems
16. The Sweetest Sweetie Award: this award should go to the Sweetie who was, literally, the sweetest guy to be around, especially when the going gets tough. The winner should be the very epitome of angelic demeanor and should possess that all around "nice guy" quality that mothers love. HINT: Most likely candidate also in the running for the Pauly Shore Award.

Remember Sweeties, the party is on the evening of Saturday 12 February Y2K, at _______________.

<!-- end email -->

Conceptualizing the "Annual Sweeties Awards"

[Note: This email was not wrritten by mee. Original text was formatted for readability and edited to protect people's identities. Well sort of.

We were in our mid-20s back then.]

<!-- begin email -->

In an effort to professionalize the Annual Sweeties Awards (ASA, as in asa ka pa Lumo kung manalo ka ng most kupal award), Kim Chong and I are suggesting that we do the following:

1. The list of categories will be e-mailed to all the Sweeties in the mailing list. The others will be called, if we have your number.
2. Voting can be done through mail or through phone. Kim has volunteered to be Comelec Chairman. You can vote until Friday.
3. Awards will be printed on the most disgusting sheet of second hand tissue paper we can find...well, we'll just print them in time for Saturday.
4. Venue for the awards will be at our place, _________, San Antonio Village Pasig.

Here are some of the categories we've dreamed up:

1. The Michelin Man Award: ask Jutes about this. It has something to do with his bad luck with tires...
2. The Short Time Award: for the Sweetie with the highest turnover with women. Shouldn't we just call this the Gerwin Cuenca Award?
3. The Pathetic Sweetie who Went to Boston and Still Didn't get the Girl Award: Only if such a pathetic creature exists. Otherwise, we just call it the Kim Chong Award in recognition of the pathetic, whining, lovestruck creature that he is.
4. The I Don't Have the Heart Award
5. The I Want it That Way Award (guess who suggested these last two beauties)
6. The Pauly Shore Award: this award should go to the Sweetie who would be the best son-in-law. Award inspired by that insipid Pauly Shore movie that everyone claims not to have seen but actually saw.
7. Most Kupal Sweetie: a lot of Sweeties have been working overtime to merit this award. Ralph, Kim, and even Ice have been doing their darndest best to get this prestigious award. Thus, Kim (Comelec Chairman) and I (Most Gwapo Sweetie) have decided to impose the following criteria:
   1. The nominee should be named ______
   2. The nominee should have a legacy of taking alcohol showers
   3. The nominee should have, in the past, broken up with a girl, then got on with her again, only to break up with her for the last time
   4. The nominee should like flirting with his girl students.
8. This really isn't an award, but more of a news report. Ralph prohibited other sweeties, notably Marvin Carlos, from sending him inessential mail.

   Upon opening his mailbox (sma_6@yahoo.com), Ralph received mail from the following addresses:

      notmarvincarlos@yahoo.com
      definitelynotkimchong@hotmail.com
      itsnotme_jutes@skyinet.net

   Will the people responsible stop sending Lumo junk mail. It's enough to make our leading candidate for Sweetest and Cuddliest Sweetie puke.

Oops, gotta go to class. Be back with part two later! :-)

<!-- end email -->

When Teaching Night Flies All Over the Place

One teaching night in Singles for Christ New York not so long ago, Steve Zosa had a question about making life-altering decisions  (I remember hearing something about career and deciding whether to stay in the US for good.). "I know you're going to tell me to pray [and so on]," he continued. "But is there a way to expedite..." (At the word "expedite" a lot of people started giggling. "Ano yon? Fedex?" I heard someone say.)

I thought it was funny because the question brought out the generic quality of spirituality in the community. Someone would ask a question and sometimes the people who answer -- even the leaders -- get formulaic to the point of laziness. You get canned advice. Pray. "Discern" (and I'm glad I didn't hear that word that night). A thought creeps in: "Well I've done all that, but..."

[Someone also asked: "Should we ask for a sign?" I actually like the answer to this one: a very flat "No".]

 

Also, I thought the question expressed the wish for some sort of a shortcut or magic pill for making life decisions. Throughout the ensuing discussion, I did not get a sense that there was such a thing -- probably because there really isn't.

 

But unfortunately, so far in my two years in the community, it's not SFC NY if people do not bastardize a sensible question and relate it to tired old dating questions, like knowing who's "the one". The speaker himself went this route at around the 5-minute mark of the question-and-answer segment. And why wouldn't he, especially since it seems to be second-nature to this particular Christian singles community to dwell on dating issues? Dating issues and general gossip (and often in combination) are things we in SFC NY are quite attune to, though this probably shouldn't be the case.

So then, Steve clarified that he was referring to every sort of life-altering decision, not just dating problems. But unless my mind was wandering, I heard no clear enlightenment from the speaker... or the crowd of titillated talking heads who were giggling (me amongst them). Because perhaps nobody had any real answers. Or maybe because it actually required us to think a little deeper to come up with ideas and we couldn't take the mental strain.

I had my own questions relating to the talk. I never bothered asking them because I thought it would actually rain on everyone's mood -- which of course by then took a whimsical turn. I regret not asking it now, because I was really curious about the speaker's answer.

We also discussed Couples for Christ internal politics, by the way. At least when the question was posed, it was clearly stated that it was in no relation to the talk. Still, I thought it distracted everyone a bit from the talk itself.

The talk was ok, though it did little for me. It sort of started well and then went around in rather vague directions. The open discussion started out sensibly. Jonah De Lumen began with a question about coping with spiritual dryness, for instance. But somehow, we simply went off-tangent from there and never really got back on track. Jonah, by the way, is Unilever's Dove brand manager -- and maybe her moisturizers could have done a better job curing my own spiritual dryness at around the second hour of the teaching.

 

Spiritual drought? Life decisions? If you weren't there, you may want to ask what the main point of the talk was. It's faith in God. Being able to trust in a faithful God. Who would have guessed, right?

Too bad the main point simply got lost towards the end. Again to be fair, I thought the discussion was somewhat interesting and at times helpful. But long after the talk was over, I can't help thinking that it could have been more helpful if we all took it a little more seriously and put all other things in its proper place.

A Year Since Anna's Passing

It's been a year since Anna passed away. I don't want to be dramatic about it since she apparently disliked drama.

Still, it's been a year. Last weekend, I found myself dragging my feet all day because we had this chapter assembly as usual on the third Sunday of the month -- same as last year. Sometimes you need to ask yourself if whatever you're doing is worth it.

The day after Anna's passing, I found myself on a tennis court for another mediocre scheduled match and during the spare time I had waiting for my opponent, in my thoughts I had the audacity to chide God. I figured He could have taken a year off my own life and given it to someone else who could have at least seen her child's first day in school. I would not have missed a thing, I thought. But we all know it doesn't work that way and that we see life and the world mostly through a narrow viewfinder. (And for all I know, He already did give up years of my own life for her and a few other people. God may have a sense of humor about these things.).

If not for anything else, I think we all have to stop every now and then and ask ourselves why we're still so alive and well.